1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to wireless communication systems and more particularly to radio frequency integrated circuits used within such systems.
2. Description of Related Art
Communication systems are known to support wireless and wire lined communications between wireless and/or wire lined communication devices. Such communication systems range from national and/or international cellular telephone systems to the Internet to point-to-point in-home wireless networks. Each type of communication system is constructed, and hence operates, in accordance with one or more communication standards. For instance, wireless communication systems may operate in accordance with one or more standards including, but not limited to, IEEE 802.11, Bluetooth, advanced mobile phone services (AMPS), digital AMPS, global system for mobile communications (GSM), code division multiple access (CDMA), local multi-point distribution systems (LMDS), multi-channel-multi-point distribution systems (MMDS), and/or variations thereof.
Depending on the type of wireless communication system, a wireless communication device, such as a cellular telephone, two-way radio, personal digital assistant (PDA), personal computer (PC), laptop computer, home entertainment equipment, et cetera communicates directly or indirectly with other wireless communication devices. For direct communications (also known as point-to-point communications), the participating wireless communication devices tune their receivers and transmitters to the same channel or channels (e.g., one of the plurality of radio frequency (RF) carriers of the wireless communication system) and communicate over that channel(s). For indirect wireless communications, each wireless communication device communicates directly with an associated base station (e.g., for cellular services) and/or an associated access point (e.g., for an in-home or in-building wireless network) via an assigned channel. To complete a communication connection between the wireless communication devices, the associated base stations and/or associated access points communicate with each other directly, via a system controller, via the public switch telephone network, via the Internet, and/or via some other wide area network.
For each wireless communication device to participate in wireless communications, it includes a built-in radio transceiver (i.e., receiver and transmitter) or is coupled to an associated radio transceiver (e.g., a station for in-home and/or in-building wireless communication networks, RF modem, etc.). As is known, the transmitter includes a data modulation stage, one or more intermediate frequency stages, and a power amplifier. The data modulation stage converts raw data into baseband signals in accordance with a particular wireless communication standard. The one or more intermediate frequency stages mix the baseband signals with one or more local oscillations to produce RF signals. The power amplifier amplifies the RF signals prior to transmission via an antenna.
As is also known, the receiver is coupled to the antenna and includes a low noise amplifier, one or more intermediate frequency stages, a filtering stage, and a data recovery stage. The low noise amplifier receives inbound RF signals via the antenna and amplifies then. The one or more intermediate frequency stages mix the amplified RF signals with one or more local oscillations to convert the amplified RF signal into baseband signals or intermediate frequency (IF) signals. The filtering stage filters the baseband signals or the IF signals to attenuate unwanted out of band signals to produce filtered signals. The data recovery stage recovers raw data from the filtered signals in accordance with the particular wireless communication standard.
When the radio transceiver is implemented on a single integrated circuit, noise from the digital circuitry (e.g., the analog to digital converters, the digital to analog converters, the data recovery stage, the data modulation stage, etc.) can adversely affect the performance of the analog radio front-end (e.g., the low noise amplifier, the intermediate frequency stages, etc.). Accordingly, conventional IC layout practices are employed, which include separate power supplies for the analog and digital sections, separate ground connections for the analog and digital sections, and minimizing high frequency analog traces.
While these conventional IC layout practices help reduce the noise coupled from the digital section to the analog section, for high performance RF transceivers, the adverse affects of the noise from the digital section on the analog section is still too great. For instance, IEEE 802.11, in at least one subparagraph, requires a signal to noise (SNR) of −85 dBm when data is being transmitting at an 11 MPBS (mega-bits per second) rate. With this requirement, a 1-volt input signal must have less than approximately 20 micro-volts of noise. Without further noise suppressing techniques, the conventional IC layout practices fail to provide sufficient noise suppression and/or isolation.
Therefore a need exists for an integrated circuit, and in particular a radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), that has a high level of noise immunity between its analog sections and digital sections.